Film review: Armoured

Published on Thursday 21 January 2010 18:06

ARMOURED (12A) ** DIRECTED BY: NIMROD ANTAL STARRING: COLUMBUS SHORT, MATT DILLON, LAURENCE FISHBURNE, JEAN RENO

SOMEHOW securing cinematic distribution when its script, plot and execution scream straight-to-DVD, Armoured is the worst kind of B-movie: a dull one.

Weaving in dunderheaded references to Iraq and the financial crisis, the flawed-from-the-outset plot finds returning war hero Ty Hacket (Columbus Short) taking a job as an armoured-truck security guard where he's shocked to discover his new work buddies are planning an audaciously stupid attempt to rip-off $42 million from the banks who've employed their non-GPS-equipped firm to transport their cash.

With dire financial circumstances forcing his hand (the bank are about to repossess his home and child services are threatening to put his younger teenage brother in foster care), Ty reluctantly goes along with the plan, so long as "nobody gets hurt" – a condition you just know group leader Mike (Matt Dillon) and cackling hothead Baines (Laurence Fishburne) aren't going to be able to meet.

Filmmaker Nimrod Antal's style is blunt but ineffectual; he never juices us the way a good B-movie should, preferring instead to adopt a sermonising tone about taking responsibility for one's actions – something the film then undermines with its phoney Hollywood ending.